Little Slide Rooter

You're trolling everyone by putting "throwing in LaHair" in most every post these days, aren't you? There were reports that the Dodgers were scouting him earlier this week.

It's good to see Soriano 2-3 with a HR so far today, but it's looking as though his hot streak, while longer than any that he's had in the past few years was just that. Soriano between 4/5-5/27 (42 games) .259/.296/.405/.701 5 HR The he exploded, raising his OPS from .701, where it was when the streak began to .837, it's highest on 6/14 before it began to come down to earth. Soriano between 5/28-6/14 (16 games) .333/.403/.767/1.170 7 HR and then since, 6/15-6/27 (today not included, 12 games) .220/.347/.390/.737 2 HR Put together the 56 games without the creamy middle, and we have something like .249/.309/.401/.710 7 HR. I'd certainly expect the slugging to stabilize to the mid-high .400's, and you've pretty much got the real Alfonso Soriano. While not a thing of beauty, if a team is picking up minimal salary, coupled with the fact that he's still capable of those hot streaks, we should be able to move him for a few fringe prospects, or even 1 young, high upside guy and a 25-26 year old who's either blocked or needs a change of scenery. If throwing in LaHair maximizes the return, so be it.

Based on anything more than the fact they once took him in Rule 5? Bruce Miles ‏@BruceMiles2112 #Cubs assign RHP Randy Wells outright to Class AAA Iowa. I'll assume that if anyone had any hint of interest in Randy Wells, he'd be on a plane there by now as opposed to a bus to Iowa.

Sounds about right. Granted, we have the leverage that there's no urgency to trade him, but that sounds like a realistic return. If someone with a deep farm system and desperation for a starter wants to give us more, then more power to em.

Any chance we can shop Maholm between now and the top of the 6th?

The would be an acceptable response, had I suggested that Porcello be the centerpiece of the deal.

How much stock should be put into some of these DSL pitchers with beautiful K rates? It seems we have a few of them. Speaking of which, I noticed that Jose Paulino hasn't pitched since June 23rd. Is he hurt or something? Obviously, there really isn't much news out of there aside from box scores, but he was really tearing it up and recently turned 17.

#6 actually, unless milb.com gave him an extra one last week I can only assume that most of these would be standing triples or in the parkers for an average runner. Tony Campana could likely round the bases 3 times.

After trading Garza and Dempster, the most obvious holes on the team for 2013 and beyond is pitching. We have to get back pitching unless the FO is going to trade some position prospects for young pitchers during the offseason, Yes, we need pitching, but quality pitching. We don't want to trade the few assets we have for a bunch of, well, the pitchers we currently have throughout the organization. If nobody's offering top pitching prospects, but we can get a few top hitting prospects, wouldn't you rather that? Basically, if it comes down to ending up with a few top 100 position player prospects, or a few fringy pitching prospects from someone's top 10-15 simply because they were the best pitchers offered up, which would you rather have? Spoiler alert: fringy pitching prospects form the back of most teams top 10-15 tend to turn into Casey Coleman or Chris Rusin. I understand what you're saying, but Garza has to get us top pitching prospects back or else don't trade him. Dempster obviously is a different situation. A lot can happen by the time the Cubs are a solid team, but right now all I see in the future is a decent Wood and a shaky Samardzija in the rotation and a decent Russell in the bullpen. That's miles away from a decent pitching staff. I agree with that for the most part. Pitching is our biggest need, however if no blue chip pitching prospects were on the board but we were able to get something like Castalannos, Porcello, and low level prospect I'd take it. Unless, of course the plan was to extend him and try and win in the next few years.

But the question is, are they desperate enough for pitching that they'll give up those top 100 guys for Dempster? Right now, the Yankees are near desperate for pitching, and as a result, are more likely to give up top prospects for 3 months of Dempster than say the Braves or Tigers. If offered, I'd take a few top position player prospects from the Yankees for Dempster, and then shop the more valuable Garza to the teams with more pitching to offer. More importantly, pitchers that we wouldn't get for Dempster.

He's on the verge of not even being considered a prospect anymore, imo. That's silly, he can still fall back to the bullpen and be a legit prospect a la Alberto Cabrera. He isn't a top 15 prospect for me right now, though. Sadly, he's still one of our top pitching prospects.

Nice to see him snap out of his mini slump.

For what it's worth, Volstad had one of his better outtings of the year. 7 IP 2ER 3 R1/7 BB/K And Jay Jackson Kd 2 with 0 BB or R in 1 IP. I wonder how long before he comes up to replace one of the bullpen dregs.

After trading Garza and Dempster, the most obvious holes on the team for 2013 and beyond is pitching. We have to get back pitching unless the FO is going to trade some position prospects for young pitchers during the offseason, Yes, we need pitching, but quality pitching. We don't want to trade the few assets we have for a bunch of, well, the pitchers we currently have throughout the organization. If nobody's offering top pitching prospects, but we can get a few top hitting prospects, wouldn't you rather that? Basically, if it comes down to ending up with a few top 100 position player prospects, or a few fringy pitching prospects from someone's top 10-15 simply because they were the best pitchers offered up, which would you rather have? Spoiler alert: fringy pitching prospects form the back of most teams top 10-15 tend to turn into Casey Coleman or Chris Rusin.

But again, we shouldn't be fixated on pitching, becasue like the draft, we should be focused on the best prospects we can get, regardless of position. I have no problem shooting for the moon with Garza due to the fact that he still has another year under team control, and we can always extend him or trade him this time next year, but with Dempster we don't have that leverage.

So basically, he'd be making rehab appearences by late August. They need pitching. While they don't have anything worth Garza, we should be selling them on Dempster for a package built around Mason Williams. Unless the Braves really are willing to send us Tejeran or Minor, I can't imagine anything better coming back for 3 months of Dempster. They also have a 20 year old OF in A named Tyler Austin, their #14 prospect who's hitting .329/.410/.627/1.036 in 65 games. What's more, he's 6'2, 160 lbs so chances are he'll get bigger and develope even more power. If we could get 1 or both of those 2, Dempster's theirs. If they want to give us both + Banuelos or Betances, they can have Garza. I should add by that I mean, just Garza, not both.

No see a flier is someone who was once good or at least decent, and then broke down or sucked, and is now on the scrapheap waiting for redemption. Actually I'm sure WSR would love to take a flyer on the Angel Guzman of 2012. If it werent for the whole PED thing, yes. I'd rather take fliers out on every 26-28 year old one time top 100 or close prospect than most of the junk we have in Iowa.

That should be a given. The point behind this debacle of a season was to build for the future. Money didn't enter into it. When trading anybody, it should be all about the players we get in return, salary relief be damned.

How on earth did Rizzo not make it? Can't guys be named to the team even if they've already been called up?

Reed's numbers are pretty much what they were last year. This being said, had we signed Reed to a minor league deal with an invite, hed have been a decent pickup, but there was really no reason to give him 1.25 MM as early in the offseason as they did.

They definitely have to be coming close to desperation by now. They once held a healthy lead in the NL West, and are now tied with the Giants who have better pitching and better offense. Take Kemp and Ethier out of the Dodgers lineup, and they look like, well, the Cubs. Give us Eovoldi, and they can have as many of our non Castro or Rizzo hitters as they want. You make the statement that without two of their best hitters the Dodgers look like the Cubs. Then you say give us a good prospect and you can pick from all but the two best hitters from the same team you just compared them to unfavorably? What don't you understand? Short answer: desperation Long answer: they're still tied for 1st place but have lost the guy who carried them to a once comfortable division lead. They look like they're about to lose their 2nd best hitter as well. They have 2 other semi regulars with OPSs over .800, and one of them is Jerry Hairston Jr. Beyond that, their offense is terrible. There isn't much available on the market, and Soriano would likely be their 2nd best, if not their best hitter until Kemp and Ethier come back, and once they are back, assuming they stay in contention, which shouldn't be too hard in that division, Soriano would be a hell of a lot more valuable to them as a 5-6 hitter behind 2 guys like Ethier and Kemp than he is to a team that's I don't even know anymore how many games out and attempting to rebuild.

They definitely have to be coming close to desperation by now. They once held a healthy lead in the NL West, and are now tied with the Giants who have better pitching and better offense. Take Kemp and Ethier out of the Dodgers lineup, and they look like, well, the Cubs. Give us Eovoldi, and they can have as many of our non Castro or Rizzo hitters as they want.

Perhaps Kevin Encarnacion's the DSL equivanlent of Hoffpauir/Fox/Lahair?, but he is now 3rd in the DSL in OBP & OPS and 5th in SLG. Yesterday, he went 1-3 with a 2B and 2BB. He now has 18 BB not even 1/3 of the way through their season, and his previous career high is 36. He also has 5 HR, and he's never had more than 1 in a season. While it's one thing for a guy repeating a level for the 2nd or 3rd time to raise his slugging, OBP isn't as easy to fake, so isn't that worth something? And perhaps most intrigung of all, until recently, he was named "Kelvin", but now is listed as Kevin. The last pro-athlete I can think of who made that type of subtle 1 letter name change is Akeem Olajuwon becoming Hakeem Olajuwon, so he's in very good company. Due to his age and the fact that he's tearing up the DSL, they should bump him up to Peoria, or even Daytona due to the age factor.

There's a pretty good chance it's going to happen. We just need to hope that demand for offense gets high enough that we can get the highest quality crap possible.

They say that when a prospect seems to be struggling, it's because they're going to be called up soon, and are just trying to work on something in particular. Perhaps Jackson's working on not getting his bat dinged up.